yao yan

There is quite literally no book like this, no art like this. It’s simple yet deeply understanding and intelligent. It’s a very direct commentary on how we think and live, and yet there seems to be no commentary at all, it seems like a joke, that’s the brilliance of it. A typical notebook has no title, by giving it one you thereby state that you are here to say something, that this is more than just a notebook, that this is art. Such an art form is unexpected and even shocking, because we think of art as effort by the artist, but here it’s effort by the audience. It is as if the artist gave us the paint brush in addition to the most profound and inspirational idea they have ever had, an idea so intellectually honest you can’t help but take them up on their offer, you can’t help but experience the most profound type of art possible, your own art. A blank canvas is handed to you, zero words, utter empty void, but if you begin to write, you create your own book, and every idea you put into that thing can either be about sex or not about sex. As Shakespeare famously proclaimed, “to seggs or not to sex? That is the question.” What do you think about besides seggs? That is the question, and this book forces you to answer, forces you to confront your mortality unfiltered and raw.